


Interlude

by Irisunohimitsu



Series: The Long Life of Loki Leifson [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crown Prince Thor, Gen, Inter-realm Diplomacy, Tesseract, fire giants - Freeform, thor is a bit of a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-17 19:50:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10601028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irisunohimitsu/pseuds/Irisunohimitsu
Summary: The tale of a Crown Prince who lost his Crown.The tale of an astrophysicist who searched, and found more than she was looking for.





	1. Thor Odinson

**Author's Note:**

> Posted in honour of the Thor Ragnarok trailer, introducing a Thor who is much less awesome and puppy-dog like, because he had no Loki to bring him down the odd peg or twelve.
> 
> This consists of 2 very short chapters giving a little background information for the main next work in this series. The next story will be called _Loki Leifson_. It's coming along nicely, but frustratingly at times!

Crown Prince Thor was loved by all. His strong good looks and mighty fighting strength were legend across Asgard. There was no-one the people trusted more in battle, for he emerged from any duel he fought victorious, often with barely a scrape to show he had been challenged.

Almost as legendary as his strength, was his arrogance. Crown Prince Thor was unchallenged in his power, and growing up the doted-upon only child of the royal family – destined to one day take on the throne – had done little to curtail his own sense of self-importance. He was the uncontested crown prince, and diplomats across the realms shuddered at the thought of his coronation.

Unfortunately, one such diplomat once shuddered too obviously – or rather, the son of a diplomat. Hripuðr was visiting Asgard for a state dinner with his father Bruni, Inter-Realm Ambassador of Musphelheim. At dinner Crown Prince Thor began to boast of his feats of strength against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, and Hripuðr was seen to roll his eyes.

Naturally, Crown Prince Thor immediately challenged him to a duel. Hripuðr’s honour demanded that he accept, and the stage was set. For all of the Crown Prince’s mighty strength, there is no defence against fire save for ice, water and magic – and Crown Prince Thor possessed none of these. The tantrum he threw following his first defeat in the ring wound higher and higher until finally he attempted to declare war on Musphelheim. Fortunately, his declaration was taken with all the gravity of a 30-year old infant’s demands for attention, and thus war was averted.

Thor, however, faced all the consequences of his actions, brought down by the wrath of a furious Odin. His title of Crown Prince was stripped from him, as was his strength. He was sent to live a full decade as a retainer of the very Fire Giant he had sought to battle in an attempt to teach him some humility.

Returning to Asgard ten years later, Thor’s beard was singed, and his temper doused. He regained his royalty but not yet his full title. Neither Odin nor the people had yet seen enough change in him to justify such an honour. Yet worse, Mjölnir, once the most feared weapon of all the realms still did not deign to answer his call.

Thor continued to look down on other races, sneering at all save their nobility, and speaking slowly, as if to diminish their intelligence, or worse, their worth in battle. Towards the Vanir and the Light Elves, he at least exercised some manner of restraint, maintaining a veneer of good manners. The Mortals of Midgard, centuries ago when he had walked among them were savages, but if they were willing to worship him as a God he would gladly accept the adoration he was due. He loathed the Fire Giants, but was, following his humiliating defeat and servitude, cautious in how he spoke of them. The vast majority of his ire, therefore, was left to fall on the Frost Giants. These were a creature entirely despicable to him: Worthless as foes, and too brutal to even attempt to engage diplomatically. Oh yes, the Jotun were little more than mindless beasts, and should he ever meet one again he would strike its thoughtless head from its shoulders.


	2. Jane Foster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry in advance if my 9 Realms are a little off - I think it wound up being a weird sort of fusion of mythology and Marvel!

Jane stepped out of her camper in the morning, and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of several black vans outside her base. Even more unwelcome were the men carrying armfuls of her delicate equipment out of the base, and placing it with far less care than she thought necessary inside the vans.

“What the hell are you doing?” She shouted furiously, “that stuff is mine!”

A man in a dark suit detached himself from the group and approached her, pulling a badge from an inner pocket.

“Agent Coulson.” He introduced himself, smiling blandly. “We’re requisitioning your research.”

“What? But why? I’ve not done anything wrong!” She cried.

“Oh no, quite the opposite.” Coulson soothed. “Your research is fascinating, Dr Foster. I represent an organisation known as SHIELD, and we have an interest in understanding more closely the mechanisms behind instant teleportation, such as that achievable by the Einstein Rosen Bridges you are proposing. We would like to offer you the opportunity to advance your research with a significantly enhanced budget.”

Jane gaped.

“What? I…” She watched another of her sensors being loaded up. “Do I get a choice?”

Agent Coulson looked at her blankly, eyes flicking over to the same van she was staring at, then back to her. That was a no, then.

“OK.”

Turns out that enhanced budget brought with it a huge amount more manoeuvrability. Jane was now able to travel round the world in search of signs of her Einstein Rosen bridges, and was making more and more progress every day towards constructing one of her own. The introduction of the Tesseract brought another dimension again to her research: Now, she actually had the power at her disposal to build a functional bridge, rather than a simply theoretical one. On a few occasions, she even thought that the signals coming through from the bridge hinted at feedback on the other end of her tentative probes.

She turned out to be right. Two years after she was first brought in to work with SHIELD, they made first contact.

First Contact. A phrase burnt into her mind from childhood sci-fi stories. Actual, real life extra-terrestrials. Royalty, no less. And here she was, sat in conference with them. Her, Agent Coulson, Director Fury and a few other scientists Jane had worked with on the bridge. Director Fury introduced them each in turn, then opened the conference properly.

“So, your Majesties,” Director Fury began, “Welcome to Earth.”

“Thank you.” The woman inclined her head graciously.

“What brings you here?” Fury did not mince his words: He was an intelligence officer, not a diplomat. The hefty blonde man stood behind the woman bristled at Fury’s manner of address, but the woman herself seemed entirely unfazed.

“I am Queen Frigga of Asgard, wife of Odin Allfather, protector of the nine realms. Behind me is my son, Prince Thor.” The man bristled again at his title, though Jane could see no wrong with it. “I have travelled to Midgard – apologies, Earth, to initiate a relationship with your realm, as it would appear you are now ready to operate as one of the Nine Great Realms of Yggdrasil. My son travels with me for my protection, and so he might learn the art of statecraft.”

The room was silent for a moment, everyone processing the information, puzzling over the new vocabulary.

“Your pardon, your Highness but what do you mean by the ‘Nine Great Realms?’” Coulson asked politely. 

“Ah, perhaps a brief history lesson then?” Queen Frigga smiled gently. “Your realm is one of nine cosmically linked realms, each existing in a different plane. The branches linking these realms are known collectively as Yggdrasil, the world tree. Midgard, as your realm is known to us lies at the centre of the world tree, and is the gateway from your wider universe to the rest of the Nine Realms. Asgard, from which we hail rests at the top of the tree, and is charged with the protection of all the Nine. The other civilised realms are Alfheim, home of the Light Elves; Vanaheim, my realm of birth and home to the Vanir; Musphelheim of the Fire Giants and Nidavellir, where the Dwarfs ply their craft. Then there is Svartalfheim, once home to the Dark Elves, now a dead realm; Niflheim, home to Hel, which holds only the dishonoured dead; and Jotunheim. Jotunheim is the only realm save Asgard which has had contact with Earth before. Thousands of years ago, when your kind were yet young, Asgard took up arms to repel from your realm an invasion by the Jotun – Frost Giants of Jotunheim, in which they sought to take Midgard for their own. I believe your history remembers it as a great ice age.”

Jane’s world expanded, rapidly and thrillingly. Not only was there one other civilisation out there, there were many. They had been to Earth before, and travel was not a question of mere space exploration, but inter-dimensional travel. This, if nothing else was proof that her Einstein Rosen Bridges must exist – how else could these beings have travelled here?

Queen Frigga continued her explanation, her gaze now sharper, travelling carefully over each and every one of them, watching for their reactions.

“When we first visited this realm, millennia ago, we were worshipped as Gods by the mortals here who had no comprehension of anything beyond their immediate surroundings. It would seem in the centuries since you have developed more rapidly than any could have predicted. Heimdall, our watchman has informed my King and I that some great thinkers of your world have begun with the development of a Construction that might allow you inter-realm travel, though it remains yet in its nascent stages.”

Her eyes now fell on Jane, who gulped. Coulson and Fury looked at her, deferring to her expertise on the matter.

“Yes, your majesty.” She stood, twisting her hands together nervously. The Prince stared. Clearly he had not expected her to be the great mind his mother spoke of. His shock simultaneously increased her nerves ever more, and filled her with the desire to surprise him further, and prove his stupid expectations wrong. “I am Dr Jane Foster. I’ve been working with a group of astrophysicists for the last 5 years on identifying and replicating a phenomenon referred to as Einstein Rosen Bridges. Colloquially, they are known as wormholes, and would as you said, allow for travel across great distances, or even between dimensions. Of course, up until now it’s been largely speculative as we had no confirmation that other dimensions even existed. I – that is, we had noticed recently that we appeared to be getting feedback from our attempts at sending out probes. I would assume those instances were linked to your watchman noticing them…”

The queen looked discomforted for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“It is possible. I am uncertain as to how Heimdall’s gaze would interact with a foreign Bifrost-Construct.”

 Coulson cleared his throat again now, stepping forward to address their visiting dignitaries.

“We appreciate the background, your majesty, but we would like come clarification on what you would consider the initiation of a relationship to involve.”

Queen Frigga nodded graciously in his direction.

“Of course, Agent Coulson. Simply put, we would like to invite a delegation of your researchers and scholars to Asgard to learn our culture. They will also be allowed to investigate and learn the workings of our fully functional Bifrost – a construction to generate what you call Einstein-Rosen Bridges and facilitate our travel between the realms.”

Jane was thrilled at the possible opportunity to visit another realm, learn a whole new branch of a science she loved, but the next sentence brought her dreams crashing back down around her.

“However, regrettably we must stipulate that your own bridge construction halt immediately.”

“Why?” She burst out, then tacked an apologetic “your majesty,” on the end. The bridges were her life’s work. If she was to be given the chance to understand them fully, why should it have to be at the cost of realising her dream of creating one?

Queen Frigga looked at her sympathetically.

“My dear, you must understand that if seized by the wrong hands, a Bifrost can be a catastrophically destructive weapon. Such concentrated power and distortion of space could easily destroy a realm if left unchecked.”

That made sense, Jane admitted reluctantly. Like how objects could burn and warp under bright, concentrated light.

“Furthermore,” the queen continued, “whilst you have made admirable strides in the creation of the bridge itself, you have made none whatsoever in controlling completely when it opens and closes. At present, your bridge might be described as a gate that can be opened from both sides. Without a gatekeeper, it leaves you vulnerable to attack. It simply is not safe for your realm to possess a Bifrost; never mind one powered by something so temperamental as the Tesseract.”

Damn. She was right. Jane subsided. So long as she was allowed to study a fully functional version of her dream, she supposed she could allow the one she currently had to slip from her fingers. She watched Coulson begin negotiations with bated breath, hoping and praying to all the Viking Gods she could name (two, in total – one of whom was in the room) that the trip would go ahead, and that she would be included.

Finally, an agreement was reached. The entire Einsten-Rosen Research Group would visit the Realm of Asgard, along with mixed group of representatives from a huge variety of other academic fields. The only exception from the Einstein-Rosen Research Group was Erik Selvig, who respectfully declined, choosing instead to stay and oversee the dismantling of their current prototype.

In a final offer made by the queen without prerequisite or condition, Prince Thor’s help was promised in the event of Midgard ever facing enemies beyond their ken. It was possible, she reluctantly explained, that their research could have attracted the attention of more realms or forces than just those of Asgard – parties that might seek to seize the powerful inter-realm bridge for their own.

Prince Thor did not seem overly happy at his services being offered as a consolation to sweeten a deal. He frowned, his muscles tensed, and he almost protested out loud. Before he spoke though, his eyes flickered first to his mother and then, somewhat confusingly, to Jane. She wasn’t sure she liked the open consideration in his gaze, but smiled politely back nonetheless – this deal was important, and should things go South with the Bridge, Prince Thor would indeed be a valuable asset to the Earth’s defence.

Not a single person in that room expected that portion of their agreement to be called on any time soon. Never mind a mere matter of months…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think!
> 
> The next main story, _Loki Leifson_ continues to be in the works. I would like to start posting it in a few weeks, all being well.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think :)


End file.
